1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a Point-Of-Sales (POS) system employed in, for example, department stores, supermarkets and the like. This system is mainly constituted by a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in department stores and supermarkets which handle a variety of goods on a very large scale, the sales and stock data of such goods are managed by a POS system constituted, in general, by a central control computer (controller) provided in a management center in the store and a plurality of POS terminals provided at each sales counter in the store. Each POS terminal comprises at least a keyboard, a bar-code reader (scanner), and a display device. The POS terminal also comprises at least one memory device used as a Price Look-Up (PLU) table for storing article codes, article names, unit prices, and the like. Conventionally, the PLU table is provided in the POS terminal because this table must be frequently indexed by an operator at the POS terminal.
Article data such as the unit cost of the article stored in the PLU table of each POS terminal is often changed on a daily basis, or even during the course of business. Therefore, each day it may be necessary to transmit the article data in the PLU table to each POS terminal, from the central computer, prior to the start of business, to update the contents of the PLU table in each POS terminal. However, the transmission of the article data to each POS terminal takes a long time and involves a complicated procedure. In particular, when it becomes necessary to update the PLU table, for example, to change unit costs, correct erroneous article data, or register new article data into the PLU table, etc., during the course of business, the central computer must correct the data in the PLU table and transmit the corrected data to all of the POS terminals. However, this operation wastes time, and during that time, service at the POS terminal is interrupted, with the result that customers must be kept waiting for an inordinate length of time. Obviously, it would be preferable if the updating of the PLU table could be performed immediately from an individual POS terminal, and the result of the updating be immediately and simultaneously reflected at all other POS terminals in the POS system. Further, to require each POS terminal to contain the PLU table greatly incrases the cost of the POS system.